The use of bedpans for hospital patients who are reclined in a bed is well-known, and many types of bedpans have been developed to allow for easier use and movement. The traditional methods of placing a bedpan underneath a patient include manually lifting the hips of a patient or turning a patient on his side before sliding the bedpan in place. For most patients with spinal injuries who need to stay horizontal or stationary for treatment reasons, the manual lifting of the hips can be a very painful experience. Even for patients allowed to move on the bed, these methods of placing a bedpan beneath the patient can be discomforting and embarrassing. Consequently, there is a need for an alternative method or device to lift the posterior region of a patient without resorting to painful and often difficult manual lifting or turning of the hips.
Inflatable lifts have recently been developed to help solve some of the problems of positioning bedpans under patients. One example disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,546 to Martin places a roughly semicircular inflation tube attached to a belt-type apparatus to be worn at all times by the patient. Another example disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,081,721 to Stefano inflates the entire area under a patient like an air mattress, except for a cavity in the area large enough to slide a bedpan into. While each of these prior art devices addresses the problem of moving patients, the Stefano device requires a large amount of air to inflate and adds essentially another entire mattress to hospital beds and adds further difficulty in placing and removing the device. The Martin device can be inconvenient in situations where nothing should be attached directly to the patient in the belt area, and that device also still needs to be initially placed under a patient by lifting his hips. These limitations in the prior art need to be remedied.